


Silence Stays

by iwasgonegonegone



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, M/M, Retirement, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, discussions of injury, self destructive tendencies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 04:32:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11798472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwasgonegonegone/pseuds/iwasgonegonegone
Summary: Written for a prompt on Tumblr: 'We can't keep this up forever.'"Yuri was leaning over the edge of the rink wall, sweaty hair falling into his face as he listened to the voicemail over the sound of his own heavy breathing. He’d missed Otabek’s call by just a second—by accident, he told himself—and his voice did nothing to drown out the screaming of his muscles, the ever-present ache in his aging joints.Otabek didn’t need to worry about him."or, Yuri's career is about to end and he is Not Handling It Well.





	Silence Stays

_“Yura, hey. It’s… 10:45 and you’re not answering any of my texts. I know you said you were staying late to practice tonight, but I really think you should come home. I’m worried about you, I… Just give me a call.”_

There was no ‘I love you’ at the end of the call: only the barest, frayed edges of worry clouding the static-ridden baritone of Otabek’s voice. Yuri was leaning over the edge of the rink wall, sweaty hair falling into his face as he listened to the voicemail over the sound of his own heavy breathing. He’d missed Otabek’s call by just a second—by accident, he told himself—and his voice did nothing to drown out the screaming of his muscles, the ever-present ache in his aging joints.

Otabek didn’t need to worry about him.

He’d promised himself one more run-through, one more painful step toward perfection, before the night was done, and that’s what he was going to do. Ignoring the voicemail, his free program music echoed through the empty rink, and he took off to the center of the ice before he could even process it.

Notes and harmonies swelled around him as he forced his exhausted body through precise movements, and he took a fleeting, morbid sense of satisfaction in the way the  _crash_  of his body against the ice coincided with a crescendo in the music after a failed quadruple Lutz. The satisfaction was quickly followed by the inexplicable,  _frustrating_  burn of tears in his eyes as he heard the music continuing on without him, and heard the scraping of blades on ice approaching him.

“Plisetsky, you okay?” The rink staff member (Christine? Chrissie?), the only other person around, was up from her spot on the bench and next to him in a second. He’d offered her extra pay to stay late with him and keep quiet about it, knowing it was stupid to practice alone. She usually just watched Netflix and did homework on the bench until he was ready to leave, but she’d been watching him warily ever since he’d arrived hours earlier, probably tipped off by the dark circles under his eyes and the stiffness in his posture.

He lifted himself up on shaking limbs, swatting away her prodding hands gently. “Fine,” he said through the lump in his throat, letting the cool numbness of the ice soothe the pain in his knee.

“I’m calling you a cab. You’ve had enough tonight,” she said, skating away from him and gathering his things into his bag. Yuri was silent as he watched her go, silent as the music cut short, silent even as he forced himself upright and glided carefully off the ice.

He’d have to learn to be silent while being forced off the ice; practicing that was just as important, now.

* * *

Otabek wasn’t waiting at the door for him as he limped into their apartment at 11:05 later that night, turning the lights onto their dimmest setting and wincing as he took his shoes off. Even though it had been four years, a part of him half expected Potya to wind herself around his legs as he shut the door, but she’d been gone since he was twenty-three. For some reason, he and Otabek never considered getting a new cat.

He took a shower feeling like he was on auto-pilot, running his routine through in his head over and over and ignoring the sting of hot water against the blisters on his feet. Looking at his reflection in the fogged mirror, he took in the sharpness of his cheekbones, the ridiculous length of his hair, the absolute  _faintest_  beginnings of wrinkles at the corners of his smudged eyes. He was every bit the weathered champion his fifteen year old self has hoped he would become, every ounce the elegant soldier Otabek saw in him on that night in Barcelona.

He lowered his eyes in resignation as he stumbled into his pajamas.

Yuri opened the door to his and Otabek’s bedroom quietly, surprised that the light was still on. He met Otabek’s tired eyes from the doorway and smiled feebly.

“You never answered my texts or my voicemail,” Otabek said, not smiling back.

“I know. I’m sorry, Beka, I got caught up, you know—“

“We can’t keep this up forever, Yura.”

Yuri’s jaw snapped shut, a flash of dread sweeping through his body as he avoided his husband’s eyes. “It’s just until the Grand Prix. Not forever.”

“That’s what you said last year when you were going to retire with Yakov. Yuri, you need to stop.”

At the non-diminutive form of his name, something in Yuri stirred. “It’s fine, Beka. I’m fine—“

“Your knee is shot, you’re destroying yourself over something that ended years ago, and you—fuck, I don’t even feel like I know you anymore—“

Yuri wrung his fingers through his wet hair as he watched Otabek’s frame go rigid, the dark, warm eyes made cold by tears. He looked down at his bruised feet and closed his eyes as he listened to Otabek’s choked voice.

“I understand how hard it is to move on. I really do. But if you would just let me help you instead of, of, keeping me in the dark and destroying yourself like this—“

Yuri turned. Otabek took a deep breath.

“This can’t go on. I can’t stand this, I really can’t, not anymore. I can’t live like this, constantly worrying about you and tiptoeing around every word, never knowing whether you’re okay or what you’re thinking—you’re not the person I married, Yuri. I feel like I’m married to a ghost and I _can’t stand this anymore—_ ”

Yuri kept himself quiet, didn’t let himself look at Otabek as he nodded and walked out the door.

* * *

When Otabek woke up the next morning, he was alone in his bed and his eyes were stinging. He counted down from 100 to calm the swelling anxiety in his veins as he forced himself out of bed. He’d felt lost for a long time, but he hadn’t experienced an utter helplessness like this since he was a child.

Splashing cold water on his face, he caught a flash of color in the corner of his eye—a familiar shade of gold that sent the same thrill through him as seeing an old friend for the first time in years.

The smooth, long locks of Yuri’s hair, knotted into a disconnected braid, sitting silently, boldly, in the wastebasket in the corner of the room, and Otabek felt a heavy breath finally leave his chest.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on tumblr @crescendotayuri!


End file.
